Rip squeezed his brows low as he gave me a blank glance. An offhand remark of mine had instigated the confrontation with Wharton, as perhaps my husband's subconscious reminded him.
"I don't see how."
"Oh sure. Philbin says he was digging around in the supply closet right back here." He reached behind his chair and tapped on the wall. A closet on the other side of the wall opened into the classroom hallway. Theoretically, the closet served as a buffer to keep private conversations private.
"You want to give me your version of it?"
"Certainly, Lieutenant." Rip sighed and looked over at me meaningfully this time. Apparently he had remembered my comment and what it had instigated.
While I was refurbishing the lobby I was around the school quite a lot—and so was Richard Wharton. At that time I had no idea how his services were being used, only that he seemed quite ...available. So I made a joke. I said I thought Bryn Derwyn ought to issue Richard Wharton a locker.
Rip had become thoughtful, even concerned. What he heard me saying was that the school's attorney spent far too much time visiting one of his smallest clients. Having drawn his attention to that fact, Rip's question was why.
"He's not charging you to drink coffee, is he?" I had asked.
"Damn, Gin. Sometimes I think I'm wearing a sign that says, 'Kick Me.'"
It turned out that Wharton's invoices were so padded the man could have stuffed a Santa suit with the fluff. His excuse was that Bryn Derwyn was on the way to his office, making it ever so convenient to stop in and keep on top of things.
"You argued," Newkirk prompted.
It had been an argument all right. Rip's investigation revealed that every one of the attorney's visits had been on the clock. Revising previous bills would have been tricky business, so they compromised.
Now my husband spread his hands. "Wharton had been overcharging us. As a Board member and fundraising chair, much of his time was supposed to be gratis."
"Yes?" Newkirk encouraged patiently.
"I told him we needed itemized bills from then on and that his volunteer work was to be strictly that—volunteer."
Newkirk smiled. "You called him an underhanded son of a bitch."
Rip tilted his head and smirked. "I called him worse than that."
Newkirk nodded with satisfaction. "So I heard."
"That was the end of it, Lieutenant. I got no further trouble from him."
Newkirk sighed like a chagrined uncle. "Yes, Mr. Barnes. I believe you. Except I don't suppose you were real fond of each other after that. Were you? I mean Richard Wharton wouldn't have exactly been on your side the next time something came up. You see what I mean? You want to hire a reading teacher or something like that and the Board needs to vote. I figure Mr. Wharton was maybe the type to vote the other way sort of as punishment, if you see what I mean. Anything like that happen, Mr. Barnes?"
"The Board doesn't vote on hiring teachers, Lieutenant."
"But don't they approve the budget that gives you the money to hire the teacher? It's just a hypothetical example, Mr. Barnes. I'm sure you take my meaning."
"Oh yes. You're telling me that Jeremy Philbin—and you—think I had a motive to kill Richard Wharton. But don't forget that Philbin's trying to get his own ass off the hot seat, and despite what I thought of Wharton, I was in a meeting with three other people when he died."
"Yeah, probably. Except the death occurred between three and four, and part of that time you were busy firing your part-time music teacher. Then you were alone for at least a couple minutes."
"No," I said impulsively. "We walked out of the auditorium together." How could this bozo possibly think Rip was capable of murder? It was my initial fear coming true.
"Did you actually see him come into the office?"
I said nothing, just scowled, but Newkirk read my mind. "Didn't think so."
I flushed with fury.
Meanwhile, my husband slowly shook his head. Then he shrugged apologetically at the detective. "I didn't do it, Lieutenant," Rip said simply. "I might have been alone a minute between the time Nora left—she quit, by the way—and when the teachers joined me here for our meeting; but I didn't even know Wharton was in the building. And even if I had known, there wasn't enough time for me to have killed him."
Newkirk nodded in earnest now. "I hear you, Mr. Barnes. And between you and me, I believe you. For now. The reason why is you could have fired him. Right? So I believe you. But that's not the same as the facts. And right now I got to go get me some more facts." He stood and tossed Rip a "Have a nice day."
He stopped at the doorway because I was still there. "Those donuts?" he asked.
"Yes." Stale chocolate donuts melted into the napkin where my fingers had been squeezing them. "You want them?" I asked sarcastically.
"Don't mind if I do," he replied.
After he turned left out of Joanne's area for a destination somewhere within the building, Rip flopped back against his chair. The impact swiveled him away from me. I dropped into Newkirk's former seat.
After a moment, I asked Rip what he intended to do.
He swiveled back, his hands resting on top of his head. "About what?" He had mentally moved on. Since Newkirk had not arrested him, he was free to attack a real problem. That was how his mind worked.
Me, I'm not nearly so bottom-line oriented. I've noticed that sometimes if you don't steer in the right direction early enough, you skid into a tree.
I told Rip I'd see him later and set off to find Joanne.
I found her perfecting her hairdo right around the corner in the women's room. Even without chocolate donuts, she was happy to direct me to Susan Kelly's apartment. She wanted George Kelly to be guilty just every bit as much as Rip and I.
Chapter 13
SUSAN KELLY’S APARTMENT was over a car repair shop in the outskirts of King of Prussia. At my knock she peeked under the window shade half covering the door, gaped with surprise, and reluctantly let me in. The smell of grease and hot solder pervaded the place, and without earplugs sleeping late was out of the question.
"Is Chris all right?" His mother clutched a pink bathrobe closed at the throat.
"Oh yes. As far as I know. That's not why I'm here."
"Thank goodness," she said, forgetting modesty and slumping into a bentwood chair, one of four encircling a round table. Beyond, the living area possessed a sofa, a TV, and a green braided rug. A kitchen unit took up eight feet of the right-hand wall, and I imagined two small bedrooms and a bath through the adjacent doorway.
"Then why...?" Susan’s mind went out the window.
"...am I here? Something very personal—to me." She hadn’t invited me to sit, so I simply waited.
The woman's soft brown eyes studied me until another fear intruded. "How did you find me?"
"Joanne Henry. She brought Christopher home the day you went on that job interview. Remember?"
Susan sighed with resignation. "I guess it doesn't matter. George knows about this place already." She encompassed the room with a wave of her hand. "I thought it was perfect. Hard to find. Totally opposite from what George would expect me to pick. Cheap. He found me within a week."
"What about the restraining order?" I asked.
She looked me in the eye. "Any cops out there when you came in?"
I shook my head no.
Susan huffed and glanced away.
I pulled out a chair and sat. Feeling deflated and foolish, I said aloud, "Then George really was here at the time of the murder." Had I actually believed that protecting the school and Rip's job would be so easy?
Susan snorted. "Yeah. Too bad, isn't it?"
I stared across the room at a clown print, one of those teary-eyed men with a painted-on smile. Like so much in life, it seemed to be off center.
"He didn't hurt you, did he?"
Susan's face relaxed as if she was pleased by my concern. "No. It was just his weekly attempt to get me back."
I shuddered inwardly, shocked by her situat
ion, surprised by how completely I empathized.
"You won't go back...?"
She shook her head and smiled at the hand she had resting on the table, amused, but not wishing to embarrass me with it. "No, I won't. Thanks to Richard. He explained how I was strong, and my strength was the reason I was able to stay with George as long as I did. He was right, too. I am strong." Her eyes seemed to summon a private memory of the murdered attorney.
"Richard is sort of the reason why I'm here," I admitted.
Susan's glance was sharp.
"But if you say George was here during the murder, I'm already wrong."
"About what?"
"Remember that morning when you left Bryn Derwyn with Richard, when you were going for the restraining order? I remember having the nasty suspicion that all Richard wanted was...you."
Susan's face colored slightly. "That was what he wanted."
My own face flushed for a different reason. "Oh," I said.
"What's this really about? Were you and Richard lovers, too?"
What? Where did that come from? "No," I answered, perhaps too hastily. "No. I was just thinking that if George came to the same conclusion, it might have angered him enough to...to..."
"To commit murder. Well, he was here that afternoon. How many times do I have to say it? And why the hell would I lie? To protect a piece of slime who beat me and my son every payday like clockwork?" She stood up, folded her arms across her chest and began to pace.
"I'm sorry." Suddenly my reasons for insinuating myself into this woman's privacy seemed shallow, despite all the people who might suffer if Bryn Derwyn closed.
"Frankly, I was damn glad Richard was interested in me," Susan continued. "Do you have any idea what lawyers charge these days? Maybe I did lead him on a little. So what? He was no saint. I'd say we both got what we wanted."
I resumed normal breathing, stood and eased toward the door. "You're right. I was wrong. I was just afraid you still loved George, and somehow he persuaded you to cover for him. Foolishly, very foolishly, I thought I could convince you to tell the police the truth. Dumb idea."
Susan did not contradict me.
Just before opening the door, I paused. One other thing bothered me. I wondered how a woman who couldn't protect herself from her husband over a long period of time, years actually, suddenly managed to remain unscathed after he tracked her down and confronted her. It had nothing to do with Richard’s death, but it bothered me so I asked.
Susan took a handgun from her bathrobe pocket and set it on the table for my inspection.
Probably because I've read a few newspaper accounts of weapons being used against their female owners, my enthusiasm was forced.
Susan noticed. With flint in her eyes she crossed the room and tilted the clown print to reveal a hole in the plaster.
"George didn't think I would shoot either."
I shuffled a foot. "Glad I'm not the only one who was wrong," I said. "Sorry to have wasted your time."
When I returned home, a tow truck was hauling Bryn Derwyn's one and only full-sized yellow school bus down the driveway. Jacob watched from the service parking area, hands on hips, scowling venomously.
Chapter 14
NATURALLY, A SCHOOL bus breaking down merited some irritation from the man responsible for its maintenance, but Jacob Greene was clearly furious. Dark and balding, standing at only five-foot-eight, he appeared formidable enough to defeat George Foreman.
I stopped my Nissan at the edge of the service lot and walked over to find out why. Recent events had made me suspicious and edgy. If something else odd had happened, I wanted to know about it now.
"Bus broke down?" I asked, giving Jacob the opening he craved. "Goddamn" he cursed and more until I pointed to the classroom windows thirty feet away.
"Sorry, Gin," he said, subduing himself with effort, "but this is too much."
"What happened?"
He paced left then right before he stood squarely before me. "Water in the gas tank. Froze overnight. You have any idea how much it'll cost to fix that?"
"Plenty?"
"You betcha, plenty. Damn little vandals. This really is too much."
"How do you know it was kids?"
"It's a school full of kids. Who else could it be?"
I could name one or two possibilities, but I chose not to name them to Jacob. "You sure about the water?"
"Yeah, I'm sure. I was going out for gas and the damn bus quit fifty feet down the driveway. Just had it serviced, too."
"So what did you do?"
Hands back on his hips, Jacob paced and wagged his head, a toreador lamenting the cowardice of the bull. "I checked the gas gauge, checked for a spark, finally found drops of water in the filter and looked in the tank. Gas was floating on the stuff, sure enough. Damn kids," he muttered. "My budget is down the tubes. Your husband won't be happy about this." His breath huffed frosty clouds of disgust.
"Insurance?" I asked.
"Maybe. Yeah, maybe. But still." The deductible, the future rates. I wondered how long the destructive pranks had been going on. Joanne's computer keyboard and now this—if other incidents had occurred before Rip took over, maybe Richard Wharton knew about them. Maybe he even knew which vicious, vengeful mind was responsible.
Jeremy Philbin immediately came to mind. The veteran algebra teacher had been at the school last night and could have sabotaged the bus while he was still sober enough to unscrew the gas cap. Then he could have proceeded into the auditorium for his embarrassing display of hatred.
Unfortunately, I had difficulty imagining him doing both, but only because the two behaviors were juvenile and vengeful in different ways—one sneaky, the other quite public. If kids had really sabotaged that school bus as Jacob believed, maybe it wouldn't be necessary to mention this development to the police. Bryn Derwyn's reputation could do without any more gossip.
Yet I didn’t want to impede a murder investigation if Philbin did indulge in juvenile behavior. Perhaps a conversation with his ex-wife would help me decide whether to mention this to the police.Since I now had my own reason for wanting to go to the office, I told Jacob I would give Rip the bad news about the bus. He nodded curtly, then turned back toward the building, focused once again on his anger.
I drove my Nissan wagon to its accustomed spot near our house and walked back to the school.
After greeting the receptionist in the lobby and paying my respects to Joanne, I checked that Rip was alone and available before entering his inner sanctum.
"Saw you talking to Jacob," he said. "What's up?"
"Water in the gas tank of the bus," I told him. "Jacob's furious. He thinks it was kids, but..." I shrugged and let the sentence hang. Rip knew as well as I that during the meeting and memorial service an adult vandal could have blended into the crowd in half a second.
Under his breath, Rip muttered a few curses of his own.
Suddenly my attention was fixed by something behind Rip’s back. Through the window I had a clear view of the school's moderately long driveway. Three police cars crept toward the front circle. When they arrived, they deployed themselves like Patton's troops positioning for an attack.
My husband noticed the widening of my eyes and turned to see what had caused my surprise. He got to see Newkirk emerge from the passenger side of the middle car and carefully shut his door.
Rip threw the papers he had been holding onto his desk and rushed from the room. I won't say he ran, but he managed to intercept the police when they entered the lobby.
My body had tensed from head to foot. Adrenaline sharpened my senses. Three squad cars probably meant an invasive search or maybe even an arrest. I desperately wanted to be among the first to learn what was happening. But whatever it was, my presence wouldn't stop it, and my curiosity could wait. The distraction was an opportunity too perfect to ignore.
I shut the door on the commotion. Alone in Rip's office, I snatched my husband's big ring of school keys out of his desk drawer. Then, fu
mbling through them with shaking fingers I chose the smallest keys, the possible file drawer keys, and painstakingly tried each one on the locked personnel file drawer in the credenza under Rip's window. The third one fit. The button popped at the corner of the drawer, and I was in.
"P" for personnel. "P" for Philbin. My heart hammered. There was no movement outside at the circle, just two cops leaning against their cars watching the front door. I scanned the few sheets of paper in Jeremy's folder looking for his ex-wife's name, hoping with a little luck to also learn her address.
Nothing. Not one word about her. I replaced the folder, re-locked the drawer, wiped the sweat off my brow with the cuff of my jacket.
I hefted Rip's bunch of keys in my hand. They opened lots of doors, lots of drawers. Where else could I find information about Jeremy Philbin?
Health insurance. Next of kin. Philbin and his wife had divorced, but it was possible he named her beneficiary of the small life insurance policy that was one of the school's benefits. The policy probably wasn't on file, but most likely the application was.
In the past Joanne doled out all the health insurance forms. I considered asking for her help again, but my instincts told me not to involve her in this. Joanne had always defended Jeremy; if I asked her to betray his privacy and she refused, I might never get the information. That went double for my husband, whose ethics were the cornerstone of his career. And hurray for that.
My own ethics would have to be examined later. The opportunity clock was ticking.
Trouble was, I had no idea if the insurance files had been transferred to the business manager's office after Kevin Seitz was hired. All I could do was check where the files used to be.
The lobby remained quiet. A glance assured me that Rip's assistant was busy rubbernecking with the receptionist and a few others who had gathered there. The police were nowhere in sight and neither was my husband.
Closing Joanne's door would be too suspicious. If I got caught, I would have to lie my way clear. I hated what I was doing, but my concern for the school was too deep, my need to act too great. "What you do may not work," my father always said, "but doing nothing doesn't work for sure."
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