Home for a Spell

by Madelyn Alt

  I heard a sigh over the airwaves. “We spoke with Abbie Cornwall this morning.”

  “I know,” I told him.

  “You do?”

  “She came into the store today to apologize.”

  His relief had morphed into confusion. “Excuse my French, Maggie, but how in heaven’s blue blazes did that come about?”

  If that was as French as Uncle Lou could get, I could only surmise that it was as a result of holding himself in check as a schoolteacher and role model for so long. “I’ll give you a hint. One of them is related to you.”

  “Tara.” He filled in the blank easily. He didn’t even sound surprised.

  “And Evie. The two of them are a force to reckon with when they get together.”

  “Don’t I know it.” His sigh wasn’t frustrated, depressed, or resigned. More an acknowledgment. “Listen, Maggie. There’s something about that place that is ringing all my bells. I just don’t think it’s a good idea for you to get mixed up in a place like that. I knew I had to say something.”

  “Aw, thanks,” I told him, touched that he’d thought enough of me to want to look out for me. “Harding, the owner, kind of eliminated that as a possibility, even if I had wanted to follow through with it after finding Locke . . . which I didn’t.”

  “Harding? Jeremy Harding?”

  I was getting that feeling again, the one that crept along my nerve endings like a breath of cool air. “Do you know him?”

  “I know of him. He’s a member of my lodge, too.”

  The Eternal Order of Samaritans lodge again. Why did that feel so portentous to me? Oh, maybe because the place hadn’t hit my radar at any point in my entire life . . . even though it must have been a part of Stony Mill history for a while because that kind of organization didn’t just come and go in the night. And yet in the last few days, I’d heard of it in regards to Uncle Lou, Devon McAllister’s father, Locke himself, and now Harding, too. Had Harding mentioned that he and Locke were lodge brothers? I didn’t think that he had. In fact, hadn’t he made it sound as though he didn’t know Locke very well at all?

  “I have to say, I’m glad. You’ll find another place. One that feels right, that doesn’t have a pall of doom and gloom hanging over it.” He sighed again. “It wasn’t just Abbie. One of the middle school teachers was suspended today, and it sent a shock through the entire teaching staff.”

  “Oh, that’s too bad,” I said, only half listening because I was wondering whether Harding’s connection to Locke could have been more than what he made it out to be. “What happened?”

  “There were . . . photos . . . of her taken in compromising situations that were making the rounds of the students. Cell phone to cell phone, email to email, and I’m sure other forms of round-robin communication I am completely and blissfully unaware of at my advanced age, and I would like to keep it that way, mind you. No one knows where the kids got the pictures, but word in the teacher’s lounge was that the principal and assistant principal had been working all day, interviewing kids and trying to track it back to its inauspicious beginnings. Regardless, it doesn’t look good for her. The administration is quite clear on the need for teachers to view themselves as role models for the kids and to conduct themselves accordingly. Kids—especially at the middle school age—are so impressionable.”

  Photos. Compromising photos. Oh boy. “What’s going to happen to her?”

  “They suspended her, with pay for the time being, pending an investigative hearing. Of course she insists she has no idea where the pictures came from or how someone could have taken pictures of her in her own place without her knowing about it, but, like I said, admin isn’t very forgiving. They will just argue that she shouldn’t have put herself in a situation where something like this could have happened. The pictures had to come from somewhere.”

  All of a sudden, I remembered a comment Liss had made in passing just that morning. “Lou . . . who was the teacher? What was her name?”

  “Miller,” he said, giving the name I in that moment fully expected to hear. “Angela Miller.”

  Annie had been beside herself, Liss had said. Her niece suspended from her job. Something about inappropriate activity, but Angela was obviously the soul of propriety from the lips of Annie herself, and you know what? I believed her. “Oh. Oh, that’s not good.”

  “Nope. Not good at all,” Lou agreed. “Colleague of mine mentioned in passing where she was living. Turns out, she lives at that same apartment complex. Forgive me for saying, it’s all a bit too much, in my mind. Place must be cursed. Hey, listen. Gotta run. I’m glad you didn’t sign. Load off my mind. That’s not the sort of thing you need to get yourself mixed up in. You have enough to deal with, with your ankle and all. Tell Marcus good-bye for me, wouldya?”

  He signed off, leaving me chewing on my lower lip as I considered what he’d told me.

  “Penny for your thoughts? Or should I adjust for inflation and the economic crash?”

  I looked up. We hadn’t budged from our parking spot. Marcus was watching me, the soul of patience as he waited for me to come back to earth.

  “What would that be now? A dollar? Five?” he wondered cheekily. “Hm.”

  “If it’s five, you will in future catch me thinking more often,” I said, laughing.

  “Yeah, me, too. So, you gonna tell me what Uncle Lou was calling about, or is that going to be one of your little secrets?”

  “He was calling to warn me away from the apartment complex.”

  “Kinda late for that,” Marcus said, “but well meant, I’m sure. Despite the fact that it was his find to begin with. Maybe he feels bad about that.”

  “Maybe. He said he just had a bad feeling about it after talking with Abbie. He also mentioned in passing that a middle school teacher had been suspended today.”

  “Yikes. That doesn’t happen very often around here. For good reason?”

  “Because pics were being circulated of her.”

  One thing Marcus was incredibly good at was reading between the lines. “What kind of pics?”

  “The kind that can get you fired if you’re a teacher at a middle school and are required to behave as befits a role model for the kids.”

  He drew a deep, measuring breath, in through his nose, releasing it through his mouth, long and slow. “We’re talking about the same thing here, aren’t we?”

  I nodded. “Uh-huh.”

  “I don’t suppose this teacher lives at the same apartment complex?”

  “Uh-huh. We need to take another look at those pictures, Marcus. And see if anything else turns up on the hard drive Tom wants you to get into.”

  “Why all the interest, Maggie? We could just let Fielding do his job.”

  I nodded. “We could do that. But this is for Annie.”

  He looked at me, not understanding.

  “It’s Annie’s niece who was suspended.”

  “Oh,” he said, realization dawning. “Shit.”

  I didn’t have to say another word.

  Our course of action decided, Marcus set it into motion. “What was he saying about Harding?”

  “Oh, nothing. Just that Harding was a member of his lodge,” I replied airily.

  “And that means something.” He didn’t sound convinced.

  “I don’t know. But . . . don’t you think it’s odd that all of a sudden we keep hearing about this lodge?”

  “What do you mean, keep hearing?”

  I explained what had just occurred to me. “And then Devon’s dad, too. And now Harding. And he certainly didn’t mention that connection to Locke when he spoke with Tom about how well he knew him.”

  “Just because they’re in the same organization doesn’t mean they’re best buddies or anything like that, Maggie. I mean, I know you want to connect the dots, but sometimes they aren’t really connections. They’re just dots. Look at Uncle Lou.”

  Oh, I wish he hadn’t mentioned Lou. That was one big sticking point as far as I was concerned.
>
  Because I knew Uncle Lou.

  And Uncle Lou wasn’t the kind of man who would participate in anything unethical.

  And belonging to an organization certainly wasn’t a crime.

  It was just a series of coincidental nonconnections. They meant nothing.

  “You’re right,” I conceded. “It’s nothing.”

  He reached over and squeezed my hand. “I know you want to help Annie. Let’s go take another look at those pics, huh?”

  Chapter 16

  Back at his bungalow, Marcus set me up on the computer while he readied the old hard drive for reactivated service at the worktable behind me. The grainy pics were easier to see on the screen of his oversized HD monitor as opposed to the smaller format of the printed shots. Much easier. I could make out far more elements of the rooms . . . and on the girls.

  “Wow. You didn’t say you had seen all of this in so much . . . crisp . . . detail.”

  He grinned over his shoulder at me. “Jealous?”

  I angled a saucy pout in his direction. “Why would I be jealous?”

  “Exactly my point.”

  I have to say, that was one thing I liked about Marcus. He always knew what to say to make a girl feel good about herself.

  I picked out Becky Cornwall straightaway without even a shadow of a doubt. I don’t know why I didn’t recognize her instantly when she walked into the store, why I had needed the tattoo to clue me in. It seemed so obvious now, looking at it. The way she held herself, her shoulders drawn up toward her chin as though constantly on guard, even in a relaxed setting, was very distinctive. Even without clothes on. As though she sensed the camera there, even though she didn’t. There were none of Abbie Cornwall, though. I was especially glad for that. One of the girls was wearing the kind of white, soft-soled shoes popular with nurses and grannies nationwide. But no granny I knew had a body like that. She also had shimmering blond hair that was pulled up into a thick, looping bun at the nape of her neck. It shouldn’t be too hard to pick her out from the list of tenants.

  None of these were the person I was looking for.

  I found her soon enough, about halfway through the lengthy list of file names. As soon as I saw her, I sat up straight. How did I miss seeing it before?

  There were numerous shots of her. Quite the pretty little thing she was, petite, with pale alabaster skin and long strawberry blond hair that curled in spirals down her back. There were also a number of very, very intimate photos of her with Tyson Hollister doing what young lovers did best when they were alone in a private setting, away from prying eyes. Too bad the eyes that were prying were secreted away. Out of sight, but not blind. Most definitely not blind, I thought, counting the number of pictures of her. And the collection I was sifting through were only the pics from the thumb drive. Who knew what Marcus would find on the hard drive?

  “Do you see what I see?”

  “Beautiful redhead, check.”

  “Do you think she resembles a young Annie Miller?”

  His eyebrows rose. “You’re right. So this must be Angela Miller, you think?”

  I nodded.

  “So, am I right to assume that you’re thinking the pics that were making the rounds of the kids at the middle school can be sourced to Locke?”

  “That’s what my gut is telling me, yes. You?”

  He stared at the photo, allowing his gaze to soften as he turned inward, breathing deeply. At length he said, “Yeah. I think you’re right on the money.”

  “So now the question becomes, what do we do with this information?” I asked. “We can’t just let Annie’s niece be fired for something that was none of her doing. Victims shouldn’t be targeted for their victimization, ever. It wouldn’t be right.”

  “Are you suggesting that we show them to her?”

  “We can’t,” I admitted. “Not without Tom’s okay.”

  He made a doubting grimace. “Hm. That’s not likely to be forthcoming. His priority is the murder investigation. Understandably so.”

  “Leave Tom to me,” I said with more confidence than I truly felt. Hey, fake it ’til you make it, right? That was my motto, anyway.

  “I had every intention to.”

  I called his cell phone, knowing it was late, knowing he might just be off duty, knowing I could be interrupting, and yet unwilling to wait until morning.

  “Maggie?” came his voice through the speaker without preamble. Caller ID, obviously. Which meant I was still in his contact list. I wondered if I should feel special, that he hadn’t deleted me yet. “What’s wrong?”

  “Hi, Tom,” I said, waving away the rude faces Marcus was making. Cheeky devil. “Nothing’s wrong. I just . . . we came across something that I think you should know about.”

  “Something with regards to the thumb and hard drive Quinn is cataloguing for me?”

  “Exactly!” I said with some relief. “And . . . well . . . a little more than that, maybe.”

  “Oh, yeah? How’d this happen?”

  “I’ll explain it when you get here. Can you come?”

  I waited a full five seconds while he considered whatever it was that he needed to consider. “Um . . . yeah. Give me a few minutes.”

  It was a little more than a few, but who was counting? Marcus went to answer the door so that I wouldn’t have to get up. Minnie was as grateful for his helpfulness as I was. She had circled her way onto my shoulders shortly after I had sat down, and there she stayed draped there like a live, rumbling, black fur stole.

  Marcus showed him back to the computer room and waited. Tom stood in the doorway, looking around at the organized library of electronic equipment. “This is the bat cave, huh?”

  It might as well be, tonight.

  He came in and leaned against the worktable behind me, crossing his arms as I turned to half face him. Marcus came and leaned against the desk beside me. Presenting a united front, as it were.

  “So, what do you have for me?” he prompted.

  I cleared my throat. “You know the pictures that were on the thumb drive found in the wreckage of Locke’s office?”

  He raised one brow rather than giving me the obvious answer.

  “There was an issue at the middle school today.”

  Tom waited, not a single muscle flexing.

  “That involved pictures.”

  Slightly more interest now. “What kind of pictures?”

  “From what I understand, the same kind of pictures that Locke had been taking.”

  He kept his expression neutral. “And you think this is related to the investigation . . . why?”

  “Because the subject of the photos was a teacher. One who lived at the apartments. Annie Miller’s niece, Angela, in fact.”

  He forgot all about poker faces as he considered this. “I think I’m going to need you to explain. In detail.”

  “Marcus’s Uncle Lou was telling me about his day, and he happened to mention that a teacher had been suspended today,” I told him. “At the middle school. Evidently there were pictures of her in compromising situations that were making the student rounds, and someone found out about it and reported her. She was suspended for the pictures and for not conducting herself in a manner befitting a role model of young teens, pending an investigative hearing in front of the school board. Tom, it was Angela Miller, Annie Miller’s niece. Annie was adamant when she told Liss that her niece was the soul of propriety, and that this was all some terrible mistake. And,” I said, pausing for emphasis, “as you know, she lives at the apartments.” I turned to the computer and pulled up the first photo I wanted to show him. One of the worst. “I’m pretty sure this is her. She looks the spitting image of Annie, albeit half her age. But who’s counting. And”—I made a face—“I’m pretty sure neither Annie nor Angela know about these. My question is, how did kids at the middle school get ahold of Locke’s handiwork?”

  Tom barely glanced at the photo. “I interviewed Angela Miller yesterday to take her statement. That picture is defin
itely her. And her boyfriend, Tyson Hollister.”

  “School kids, Tom. How?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Marcus cleared his throat. “What about our theory that Locke had customers for his secret hobby? Do you think he would have been selling them to kids?”

  “Would kids have had the money? Doubtful. I checked his bank account. He was receiving money transfers from several different accounts. Pretty little sums, too. Kids wouldn’t have access to money like that. In any case, I have a list of account numbers and an interview with the bank manager tomorrow morning. The people whose names appear on those accounts are going to have a bit of explaining to do. It’s not illegal to purchase pornographic materials where adults are involved. But where the subjects are unaware they are taking part? That’s another story entirely.”

  “So you think we’re right?” I asked him. “That the photos responsible for Angela Miller’s suspension are likely to be sourced back to Locke?”

  “I think that’s a fair assessment, yes. Timing is everything, and the timing of this is too specious to be considered coincidental.”

  “And . . . do you have any particular suspect you’re focusing on yet for Locke’s murder?” I couldn’t help asking.

  “You know better than to ask that.”

  But I couldn’t let it go. “What about Tyson Hollister? Annie seems to think he’s trustworthy. Just misunderstood.”

  “He told my investigating officer that he had taken Ms. Miller out for dinner and a movie the other night when Locke was attacked. I checked his story. He has the credit card receipt for both the meal and the cancelled ticket stubs for the movie.” Tom shrugged. “I believe him.”

  “Any of the other tenants?”

  “They all seem more victim than suspect at this point. I don’t know, Maggie. I just don’t have enough information to go on at this point.”

  Hm. A thought occurred to me. “You know . . . one thing you might find out is whether any of the bank account people had middle school kids. That at least would explain Angela’s situation.”

  “I’ll make a point of it.”

  “Good. Because I’d hate to see her get fired over something that wasn’t even her fault.”